obs-StreamFX/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing

This document intends to teach you the proper way to contribute to the project as a set of guidelines. While they aren't always enforced, your chances of your code being accepted are significantly higher when you follow these. For smaller changes, we might opt to squash your changes to apply the guidelines below to your contribution.

Repository & Commits

As this is a rather large project, we have certain rules to follow when contributing via git.

Linear History

We follow the paradigm of linear history which forbids branches from being merged, thus changes made on branches are git rebased back onto the root. This simplifies the code history significantly, but makes reverting changes more difficult.

❌ git merge
✅ git rebase

Commits

A commit should be containing a single change, even if it spans multiple units, and has the following format:

prefix: short description

optional long description

The short description should be no longer than 120 characters and focus on the important things. The long description is optional, but should be included for larger changes.

The appropriate prefix

Path(s)	Prefix	Example
data/locale	locale	data/locale/en-US.ini -> locale
components/name	name	components/shader -> shader
source templates data ui	core	ui/main.ui -> core
Anything else	Omit the prefix

If multiple match, apply the prefix that changes the most files. If all are equal, alphabetically sort the prefixes and list comma separated.

Coding

Documentation

The short form of the this part is Code != Documentation. Documentation is what you intend your Code to do, while Code is what it actually does. If your Code mismatches the Documentation, it is time to fix the Code, unless the change is a new addition in terms of behavior or functionality. Note that by this we don't mean to document things like 1 + 1 but instead things like the following:

int32_t idepth         = static_cast<int32_t>(depth);
int32_t size           = static_cast<int32_t>(pow(2l, idepth));
int32_t grid_size      = static_cast<int32_t>(pow(2l, (idepth / 2)));
int32_t container_size = static_cast<int32_t>(pow(2l, (idepth + (idepth / 2))));

class magic_class {
	void do_magic_thing(float magic_number) {
		// Lots and lots of SIMD code that does a magic thing...
	}
}

Documenting what a block of Code does not only helps you, it also helps other contributors understand what this Code is supposed to do. While you may be able to read your own Code (at least for now), there is no guarantee that either you or someone else will be able to read it in the future. Not only that, but it makes spotting mistakes and fixing them easier, since we have Documentation to tell us what it is supposed to do!

Naming & Casing

The project isn't too strict about variable naming as well as casing, but we do prefer a universal style across all code. While this may appear as removing your individuality from the code, it ultimately serves the purpose of making it easier to jump from one block of code to the other, without having to guess at what this code now does.

Additionally we prefer it when things are named by what they either do or what they contain, instead of having the entire alphabet spelled out in different arrangements. While it is fine to have chaos in your own Code for your private or hobby projects, it is not fine to submit such code to other projects.

Macros

• Casing: ELEPHANT_CASE
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: Optional
  • S_ for global values
  • ST_ for local values
  • D_ for simple functions
  • P_ for complex functions
• Suffixes: No

Example

#define EXAMPLE FALSE // ❌
#define S_PI 3.14141 // ✔ (in .h and .hpp files)
#define ST_PI2 S_PI / 2.0 // ✔
#define D_(x) S_PI * x // ✔
#define P_(x, y) double_t x(double_t a, double_t b) { return a * b * y; } // ✔

Namespaces

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: None
• Suffixes: None

Example

namespace BLA {}; // ❌
namespace a_space {}; // ✔

Type Definitions

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: No
• Suffixes: _t

Example:

typedef int32_t my_type; // ❌
typedef int32_t my_type_t; // ✔

Enumerations

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: No
• Suffixes: No

Entries

• Casing: ELEPHANT_CASE
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: Conditional
  • enum: STREAMFX_<ENUM_NAME>_
  • enum class: None
• Suffixes: No

Example

enum my_enum { // ✔
	STREAMFX_MY_ENUM_ENTRY_1, // ✔
	ENUM_ENTRY_2 // ❌
};
enum class my_enum : int { // ✔
	STREAMFX_MY_ENTRY_1, // ❌
	ENUM_ENTRY_2 // ✔
};
enum class my_enum_int : int { // ❌, has `_int` suffix.
};

Variables

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes:
  • Locals: None
  • Globals: g_
• Suffixes: None

Example

float example; // ❌
float g_example; // ✔

function example() {
	float _example; // ❌
	float example; // ✔
}

Classes & Structures

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: None
• Suffixes: None

Members

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes:
  • private: _
  • protected, public: None
• Suffixes: None

Methods

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: None
• Suffixes: None

Example

class example {
	float example; // ❌
	float _example; // ✔

	int example_int(); // ❌, has `_int` suffix.
	void example(); // ✔
	void example(int& result); // ✔

	public:
	float exa_mple; // ✔

	int example_int(); // ❌, has `_int` suffix.
	void example(); // ✔
	void example(int& result); // ✔
}

struct example {
	float _example; // ❌
	float example; // ✔
}

Unions

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: None
• Suffixes: None

Union Members

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: None
• Suffixes: None

Example

union {
	float _example; // ❌
	float example; // ✔
}

Functions

• Casing: snake_case
• Separator: _
• Prefixes: No
• Suffixes: No

Example

void func(); // ✔
void func(int& result); // ✔
int func_int(); // ❌

Interface Classes

Interface Classes are handled like normal classes. There are no prefixes or suffixes to attach.

Preprocessor Macros

Pre-processor Macros are a "last stand" option, when all other options fail or would produce worse results. If possible and cleaner to do so, prefer the use of constexpr code.

Global Variables

Only allowed if there is no other cleaner way to handle this.

Classes

Special rules for class

Members

All class members must be private and only accessible through get-/setters. The setter of a member should also validate if the setting is within an allowed range, and throw exceptions if an error occurs. If there is no better option, it is allowed to delay validation until a common function is called.

Localization

We use Crowdin to handle translations into many languages, and you can join the StreamFX project on Crowdin if you are interested in improving the translations to your native tongue. As Crowdin handles all other languages, Pull Requests therefore should only include changes to en-US.ini.

Further Resources

• A guide on how to build the project is in BUILDING.MD.
• A no bullshit guide to git: https://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/
  • Remember, git has help pages for all commands - run git <command> --help.
  • ... or use visual clients, like TortoiseGit, Github Desktop, SourceTree, and similar. It's what I do.